Mike Argento: He was the pharmacist

Jodi Archer, left, waits on Jim Dietrich of Jackson Townships on the next-to-last day of business at the West York Pharmacy, which closed last week after the death of owner Dave Ropp. (Kate penn - Daily record/sunday news)

Dave Ropp was born into it. There's no other way around it.

His grandfather, Glenn Coover, was a farmer — had a small spread in Manchester Township, out by the current location of the Outdoor Country Club — and he was a pharmacist, owning three local drug stores that bore his name. This was long before you could pick up prescriptions at the grocery store or Walmart or whatnot and the local drug store was something of a community asset — and the pharmacist did more than just fill prescriptions.

Ropp worked summers in his grandfather's drug stores. He didn't talk about the experience much, but it must have rubbed off. Something must have clicked.

His mother, Doris Cover Ropp, was a pharmacist too and at one time worked at the West York Pharmacy, a small neighborhood drug store, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

So it was no surprise that, after graduating from West York Area High School, he decided to go to pharmacy school at Temple University. His grandfather went there, as did his mother. It was a family tradition. After school, he went to work at his grandfather's drug store in Shrewsbury. He stayed until 1985, leaving to go to work for York Hospital, opening the hospital's outpatient pharmacy, and later working at the apothecary at Apple Hill.

The whole time he worked at the hospital pharmacies, he yearned to run his own place. He apparently missed it — the community drug store — and wanted to get back to it.

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About a decade ago, he had his chance. Sam Toggas was selling the West York Pharmacy. The pharmacy had been around, at that time, for 50 years. It was an institution in West York.

Ropp jumped at it. Certainly, he had to think it was a tough business. There was a lot of competition from big box stores. But he also thought there was a place for the kind of drug store he wanted to run. And besides, his wife Rose said, it was something he always wanted to do.

Dave Ropp, pharmacist (submitted)

He ran the business as if it were still the 1950s. He gave out his home phone number and his cell number and told customers to call at any time. He posted his home number on the store's front door, should any customers needing assistance stop by while the store was closed.

He went in at all hours. He would have customers who were discharged from the hospital on weekends or in evenings in need of medication, and he would drive in and meet them at the store. One customer recalls that his dog ate his wife's medication one weekend and he called Ropp in the middle of the night, asking if he could do something for her. He met the man at the store and filled the prescription, telling the man he would take care of the paperwork come Monday. He would often give customers pills to hold them over if they had a prescription run out before their insurance company said it could be refilled.

The store itself was kind of a community center. His customers weren't just sources of income. They were his friends. He would joke around with them and ask about their families. He knew their doctors. He was there to take care of them.

The store was kind of old-fashioned. Shelves led back to the pharmacy counter in the back. To the right of the counter is a book exchange, a couple of shelves of books that customers can borrow. Next to the bookshelves are containers of hard candy. The sign over one says, "Old Fashioned Horehound Candy...With More Horehound Flavor." Along the wall, below a space called the "Gift Center," was a display case containing a huge bottle of Listerine, a container of something called "Coal Tar Topical Solution" and some old reference books, including one titled "The Herpes Book." (Coal tar is used to treat dandruff and psoriasis and to kill and repel head lice — as well as being used to fire industrial boilers and sealcoat parking lots.)

It is an old-fashioned kind of place, just as Ropp wanted. It was, his wife said, "his pride and joy."

At about the same time he took over the store, Ropp was diagnosed with Parkinson's. Over the years, as the disease progressed, Ropp continued to work. Over the past year, the disease progressed quickly. He continued to work, even when he was sick. He felt he owed his customers. And it helped. It gave him something to do, something he liked doing.

He died March 2.

And a little over three weeks later, the store closed. His wife couldn't run it and had no other option than to shutter the business.

The family tradition, though, continues. Ropp's daughter, Amanda, is a pharmacist at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. She wasn't in a position to be able to take over the store.

Maybe one day.

Mike Argento's column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Read more Argento columns at www.ydr.com/mike. Or follow him on Twitter at @FnMikeArgento.

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